Raised in a wealthy middle-western family, Nick Carraway graduates from New Haven, the college he attended with Tom Buchanan. After serving in World War I, at age 29, he moves east to learn the bond business, and becomes involved with the affairs comprising The Great Gatsby.
Nick Carraway is the narrator of the book so it's hard to understand him. He only gives impressions of himself that he wants to give. He says that "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known", but we see him lie on several occasions. By the end of the book he is very jaded. When he and Jordan break up he says "I'm thirty. I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor". So the experience with Gatsby and the others takes it's toll on him.
Though he is honest, responsible, and fair-minded, Nick does share some of the flaws of the East Egg surroundings. However, of all the novel's characters, he is the only one to recognize Gatsby's "greatness," revealing himself as a young man of unusual sensitivity.
Jay Gatsby is the invented identity of James Gatz. He creates a fantasy world that he lives in where he is rich and well known, when in reality he is poor. Even when he was younger, Gatsby was never satisfied with what he had. He wanted money, so he managed to get it. He wanted Daisy, and she slipped through his fingers. So even when his wealth and stature are at their greatest, he will not be content.
He must have Daisy. But more than that there is a drive to posses her because that is what he wanted for all of those years. She was part of his image for the future and he had to have her. And although Gatsby seems very kind, he is not afraid to be unscrupulous to get what he wants.
Gatsby says he worked in the drugstore and oil businesses, leaving out the fact that he was involved in illegal bootlegging. Gatsby keeps his criminal activities mysterious throughout the novel.Gatsby buys his West Egg mansion with the sole intention of being across the bay from Daisy Buchanan's green light at the end of her dock, a fantasy which becomes Gatsby's personal version of the American Dream.
Raised in a wealthy middle-western family, Nick Carraway graduates from New Haven, the college he attended with Tom Buchanan. After serving in World War I, at age 29, he moves east to learn the bond business, and becomes involved with the affairs comprising The Great Gatsby.
Nick Carraway is the narrator of the book so it's hard to understand him. He only gives impressions of himself that he wants to give. He says that "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known", but we see him lie on several occasions. By the end of the book he is very jaded. When he and Jordan break up he says "I'm thirty. I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor". So the experience with Gatsby and the others takes it's toll on him.
Though he is honest, responsible, and fair-minded, Nick does share some of the flaws of the East Egg surroundings. However, of all the novel's characters, he is the only one to recognize Gatsby's "greatness," revealing himself as a young man of unusual sensitivity.
Jay Gatsby is the invented identity of James Gatz. He creates a fantasy world that he lives in where he is rich and well known, when in reality he is poor. Even when he was younger, Gatsby was never satisfied with what he had. He wanted money, so he managed to get it. He wanted Daisy, and she slipped through his fingers. So even when his wealth and stature are at their greatest, he will not be content.
He must have Daisy. But more than that there is a drive to posses her because that is what he wanted for all of those years. She was part of his image for the future and he had to have her. And although Gatsby seems very kind, he is not afraid to be unscrupulous to get what he wants.
Gatsby says he worked in the drugstore and oil businesses, leaving out the fact that he was involved in illegal bootlegging. Gatsby keeps his criminal activities mysterious throughout the novel.Gatsby buys his West Egg mansion with the sole intention of being across the bay from Daisy Buchanan's green light at the end of her dock, a fantasy which becomes Gatsby's personal version of the American Dream.